


If You Want Me, You Can Watch Me

by ehmazing



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Exhibitionism, F/M, Kink Meme, Mutual Masturbation, Post-Canon, Separation Anxiety, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24552634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ehmazing/pseuds/ehmazing
Summary: Edelgard embarks on a tour of Brigid alone—or so she thought.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Hubert von Vestra
Comments: 15
Kudos: 107
Collections: FE3H Kink Meme





	If You Want Me, You Can Watch Me

**Author's Note:**

> [Prompt: Edelgard/Hubert voyeurism and exhibitionism](https://3houseskinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/476.html?thread=207580#cmt207580)
> 
> "Hubert watches her all the time. He is behind walls, behind doors, in the ceiling, you name it, he is there to listen and to protect her. Edelgard knows that.  
> Edelgard reaches the conclusion that she very much enjoys masturbating while knowing that Hubert is watching her and Hubert reaches the conclusion that he very much enjoys watching her masturbate.
> 
> Bonus: They reach this conclusion at the same time, but separately  
> More Bonus: Guilt"

It’s the itch that gives it away. 

Edelgard thought at first it was only nerves. She’s never liked sailing, and the fastest route to Brigid is not through the calmest of seas. When she catches herself scratching at her wrist throughout the journey, she forces herself to stop, remain calm. Don’t think about the water surrounding you on all sides, horizon to horizon. Don’t think about the creak of the wooden planks that stand between you and a slow, cold, smothering death.

But then they reach Biringan Harbor, and though the tightness in her chest vanishes upon stepping onto solid ground and being swept into Petra’s arms, the itch remains. Edelgard scratches herself throughout the welcoming banquet, throughout the tour of the royal palace. She scratches herself even after conceding her gloves to the heat. She turns them inside out, hunting for the culprit, but finds nothing in the lining to blame.

Not nerves then, not the gloves. Maybe overwork? The days are filled with meetings, speeches, trips into the city, long hours reviewing the independence treaty. It’s a relief when Petra finally insists they put everything aside one night and sit in the gardens with cups of clear, sweet liquor, talking and laughing for hours. 

By the time Edelgard stumbles back to her room, she doesn’t care about the itch, or the heat, or even getting her clothes off before flopping onto the bed and reaching under her skirt. She slides her fingers against her folds and around her clit, gasping as she gets to work quickly, feeling flushed and so comfortably drunk. But thanks to the liquor, her orgasm is too short and too dull. She’s still irritated about it when she wakes up the next morning, half-stuck to the sheets—and still itchy. 

Finally, a full week into the tour, Edelgard is fighting the urge to scratch her wrist raw during a long dinner when she notices the loose thread in her sleeve.

She takes it between her thumb and forefinger, intending to snap it off, but someone orders, _**Don’t.**_

Edelgard looks up. To her left, Petra is deep in conversation with Brigid’s Minister of Trade. To her right, the Adrestian ambassador’s husband is still working on his fish course. 

“Pardon me?” she asks him. But when he looks up at her, he only seems confused.

“I’m sorry, Your Majesty, did you say something?”

“Oh, no.” She smiles apologetically. “I thought you did.”

He nods to the large table with sympathy; at least a dozen conversations in at least three languages are fighting to be heard. “An easy mistake.”

Edelgard gives a short, polite chuckle. “Indeed. We should both get back to our plates while we still can.”

The husband reunites with his fork, but Edelgard looks back to her sleeve. Tracing the thread’s trail again, she finds it more attached than she first suspected. In fact, though the colors match perfectly, it’s not part of the fabric. She pulls a little harder to make the stitches pucker. The thread appears to be sewn in a deliberate pattern: some strange, symmetrical design.

_**Please, don’t do that.** _

This time Edelgard jumps, twisting around in her seat. The voice came from right behind her, but there’s no one there. When she turns back around, Petra is looking at her with concern.

“Everything is alright?” she asks.

“Yes, I’m fine,” Edelgard laughs nervously. She looks back again, but still no one. “I-I think I must have spent too long in the sun.”

Petra frowns, reaching over to pat her hand. “You must be more careful. You can get sick from heat here, without enough water.” She waves a waiter over to refill Edelgard’s glass. “Drink, please. And later lie down.”

“I will.” Edelgard thanks Petra with a squeeze of her hand. She takes a long sip of water, steadying herself. It’s nerves, overwork. Homesickness. The fact that she’s used to turning around and finding someone there, always.

Resolved to end the least of all her frustrations, she attacks the thread one final time. She pinches the end between her nails, ready to rip it out, and this time the voice actually _sighs_ before it speaks. 

_**Again? Really?** _

It’s the sigh that gives him away.

Edelgard jolts out of her chair. The moment they see her stand, everyone else at the table scrambles up too.

“No, no, please,” she placates, waving them down. “I apologize. I’m only feeling a little indisposed. Your climate, while beautiful, doesn’t seem to agree with me. I fear Adrestians are built for only chilly monsoons.” The guests grant her the courtesy of laughing at the weak joke. She puts a hand on Petra’s shoulder, nods to ease her worried look. “With Her Majesty’s leave, I will retire early.”

The moment she’s out of the dining room and far enough down the hall not to be overheard, she ducks into a corner and hisses, _“Hubert, how in hell’s name did you get here?”_

She waits, but there’s no portal flash, no movement in the shadows. Through the cane screens of the palace windows, she can see the palm trees swaying in the night, but no human silhouettes in the gardens. She’s almost convinced she really is heat-sick and hallucinating when he finally responds.

_**I’m not here, Your Majesty.** _

Frowning, she reaches out with a fist and carefully knocks at the wooden wall. Petra didn’t mention her palace having servants’ passages like Enbarr’s, but they wouldn’t be a likely tour stop.

_**No, I mean I’m not in Brigid. I never left the continent. I’m in Enbarr, in my office, as we speak.** _

“What?” Edelgard presses her hands over her ears to pop them, but nothing changes. “Then how am I hearing you?”

_**Magic.** _

“Don’t dare use that tone with me right now,” she snaps. “You’re not allowed to be sarcastic while I’m losing my sanity!”

_**I assure you, Your Majesty, your sanity is intact. The thread is part of the spell. I can see and hear you through it.** _

“See me?” Edelgard holds her wrist up to one eye, squinting as though it might work like a spyglass. But no tiny window appears in her sleeve to show Hubert’s eye peering back. “Well you can’t be seeing much of me, through something so small.”

She could kill him for having the gall to laugh. _**I don’t see you through the sigil. It’s more like there’s a window centered above you and I’m looking down.**_

She cranes her head up and finds only the ceiling. “Can you see my face if I do this?”

_**Yes.** _

After checking once more to make sure there are no witnesses nearby, she aims a very rude gesture at the ceiling next. “And this?”

_**…That too.** _

With that, Edelgard begins marching back to her room, twisting her sleeve under her hand. It makes her angry that she’s not even fully angry about this. She can admit that since setting sail from Enbarr, she’s spent more than one night rereading old notes, tracing the letters as though she could pull Hubert’s voice out of his slanted capitals and jabbed punctuation. She didn’t regret ordering him to stay behind, but she did regret more than a few of the arguments that preceded it. On the ship, her narrow bed only seemed to remind her every night that she was the only one who fit in it.

Once inside her room, she sends away the waiting maid, promising she can manage to undress herself. Alone— _ha_ —again, she sits down in the chair near the balcony, watching the gauzy curtains flutter in the warm breeze.

Finally, she sighs and pokes the sigil.

_**That doesn’t do anything. The connection doesn’t activate and deactivate, it just remains.** _

Edelgard leans back in the chair to aim a skeptical look above. “How have you been listening to me all this time? How can you bear to hold a conversation with someone else while I’m having a different one in the back of your head?”

_**The effects are different between the mark and surveyor. You’re hearing me in your head, but I’m hearing you through the receiving anchor. When I have other matters to attend to, I just muffle the anchor.** _

She groans. “This is one of those spells Ferdinand tells you to shorten into ten words or less, isn’t it.”

_**Your sigil’s on your sleeve. Mine’s in a box. To stop the sound, I close the lid.** _

“Seventeen words.”

_**I did my best.** _

“Then what about my end? And the visual part?” She prods the sigil again. “What does pulling out the thread do?”

 _ **Breaks the spell. But please, my lady—**_ Hubert sounds more desperate than he did at dinner _ **—let me explain myself. I didn’t act out of distrust towards you or Petra. I only feared the consequences of delayed information. If I relied on reports mailed from the Imperial Guard, I’d always be three days behind. Anything could happen in the interim.**_

“So this way you see could me assassinated as it happened, and still be unable to do anything?” She snorts. “What a sound plan, Hubert. Truly worth all the effort to steal one of my shirts.”

There’s something about the way Hubert doesn’t reply that makes her certain he’s pausing on purpose, even if she can’t see him. Edelgard is about to ask what he’s not saying when suddenly, the mystery of the itch solves itself.

“Hubert,” she says slowly, looking to her trunk, “is this…on _all_ of my clothes?”

His response is muffled, like he’s buried his head in his arms.

_**Only your shirts. Only the ones you packed.** _

As Edelgard struggles to find the short end of the thread again, he hastily adds, _**It just has to touch your skin to work. If you’re not wearing it, I can’t see or hear anything. I picked your day clothes to make sure there was no risk of…breaching propriety.**_

“Oh! How considerate!” She immediately begins wrestling with her outer dress, yanking open the front just enough to free her arms and shove it past her hips. She attacks the cuffs of the shirt next, pulling them with her teeth when she can’t get enough of a grip on the tiny buttons. _Why_ did she send away the maid? “Heaven forbid you should commit the mortal crime of seeing me in the bath in the course of your perpetual surveillance, which I should mention goes against my direct order to let me handle the independence tour alone!”

 _ **My lady,**_ Hubert tries, but she’s tugged the shirt over her head at last, balling it up.

 _“Goodnight, Hubert,”_ she growls, and throws it to the floor.

She stands there, boiling with anger, glaring at the rumpled shirt as though daring it to reply. But only the chirping insects and rustling leaves of the island night answer back.

* * *

She wakes up too early again, but this time it’s not from a churning stomach. Edelgard almost rolls out of bed when she opens her eyes, disoriented, too slow to place her surroundings. For a moment she can only gasp, heart pounding, wondering what room is this, where is she, where is Mother and the rest of—

In another moment, the sweat cools on her skin. She remembers. 

She untangles the sheets from her legs and lies back on the bed, trying to breathe. It’s not as though she’s cold in only her nightshift, but it felt odd to sleep without any cover at all, too exposed. In spite of what sounds like a whole chorus of frogs warming up outside her open window, the room feels eerily quiet. Empty. This bed more than doubles the size of where she slept on the ship. She can stretch her arms out on both sides and meet nothing.

Her shirt still lies on the floor in a sad, lonely heap, white linen made blue in the moonlight. 

Edelgard stops herself there, because shirts are not sad nor lonely. People are sad and lonely. But _she’s_ not sad, and she’s not lonely. She is not. She is not…

She allows herself one long moment to roll over and swear into her pillow, before she slides out of bed and snatches the shirt from the floor.

When there’s no immediate response, she shakes it, trying to snap out the wrinkles. Though she has only a rough idea of how the spell works, it gives her a little satisfaction to imagine Hubert being startled awake by the sound. Would serve him right. But as she stands there, holding the shirt by the shoulders, there’s still no response. Also, strangely, no itch.

She starts to worry if maybe Hubert chose to break the spell himself. This wouldn’t be their first disagreement about his over-guarding, though altering shirts was a new tactic. How many times had she stressed, _Of course you may follow me, I want you to, I feel safe when I know you’re with me. It’s spying I cannot stand, it’s feeling like a child not trusted to make it to the market on her own. If you’re behind me, just tell me you’re there._ She had forgiven smaller transgressions before, for Hubert was aware that he still struggled not to act out of fear—to admit that he felt fear at all. He also struggled not to punish himself harsher than anyone else would. It wouldn’t surprise her if he’d destroyed his anchor the moment she cast off the shirt.

Then she remembers his comment about propriety, thinks of the itch. ‘It just has to touch your skin to work’ was, in fact, under ten words.

Edelgard pulls the shirt over her head. Sits on the edge of the bed. Looks up at the ceiling. 

“Hubert? Hello?”

She waits. Brigid’s frogs are joyously performing another symphony. When they begin the next movement, she tries again, slightly louder. 

His voice is groggy, as though just waking up.

_**You didn’t rip out the thread?** _

Edelgard exhales. “You didn’t smash your box.”

A low grunt in affirmation. _**I considered it.**_

“What stopped you?”

 _ **I hoped I might have a chance to apologize, though I don’t deserve it.** _She imagines Hubert rubbing at his eyes with the heels of his palms, as he always does when he wakes after falling asleep at his desk. _**Why didn’t you break the spell?**_

“Because I didn’t feel like mending a dozen shirts in an evening. And because...” She thinks of his notes again, how tracing his handwriting still isn’t the same as hearing him. “Because I miss you. Quite terribly.”

It’s a long moment before he replies dryly, _**Like a lost limb?**_

Edelgard aims a small smile at the ceiling. “More like an itch I can’t scratch.”

_**I’m sorry for that too. I didn’t have much time to study the effects before you left.** _

“You might have, if you’d asked me to participate before you started sewing.”

Hubert snorts. _ **If I’d asked you, would you have agreed to this whatsoever?**_

After consideration, Edelgard is forced to admit, “Well. Maybe not. But the sensation is more tolerable knowing what it is, at least.” She pushes up the sleeve to examine her skin closest to the sigil. “If you could add another layer of fabric somehow, could the effect be dulled? Or does it have to touch me directly no matter what?”

_**You can’t seriously mean you want to do this again.** _

“Why not?” she argues, leaning back on her hands to better frown upward. “It works perfectly. I can hear you very clearly, as though you were sitting right here.” She pats the bed beside her. “I can think of, oh, at least a dozen ways this would serve us better than passing notes under the table during meetings. And you might get amazing results if you used it with your other spies.” She lies all the way back, moving the pillow to support her head. “I would suggest adjusting the visual part, though. Talking to the ceiling isn’t fun for my neck.”

_**Again, I’m sorry I—** _

“This is your final ‘sorry’ allowed,” Edelgard orders. “No more.”

Hubert seems to catch himself before he offers another out of instinct and manages to turn it into a still-regretful, _**Very well, Your Majesty.**_

Another breeze makes the curtains dance. Edelgard is grateful for it, because were it not for this unusual situation, she would never wear two layers at night. She lifts her head to move her hair away from her sticky neck and tries to fan herself with the shirt collar.

“Where are you now, still in your office? Isn’t it late?”

_**My apartments. I usually leave the anchor on my desk and open it again in the morning, since I expected you’d change clothes at night. But tonight I worried that if you did reach back, I’d miss the message. So I brought it home with me.** _

Edelgard laughs at that. “What, do you store the Emperor on your dresser? Or am I sharing a table with the washbasin?”

 _ **Of course not, Your Majesty. I’d never subject you to the low company of the washbasin.**_ Oh, letters could never replace hearing the smile in Hubert’s voice. _**You have the place of honor on my pillow.**_

A sudden rush of heat courses through her, and for once the island weather isn’t to blame.

Yes, Edelgard acknowledges, it’s very silly to feel her stomach flip at the mere mention of a bed. But Hubert’s bed is one that has often crossed her mind, precisely because she’s never seen it. Not for lack of trying. He always fell back on the same half-serious joke whenever she brought it up: _If we keep to the office, this stays a dalliance. If I take you to bed, we cross the line into tryst._ As if a mattress was more sacrosanct than a desk carved during the reign of Theodosius VII.

But a yawn cuts through her swirling thoughts of notable furniture.

_**I agree with Petra: you seem like you could use more water and plenty more rest. Go back to bed, my lady. You can see—er, hear—me in the morning.** _

“An ocean between us and yet you still manage to fuss,” Edelgard huffs, but she pulls her arms out of the sleeves, leaving the shirt hanging in a loop from her neck. “Does it still work like this?”

Hubert sounds a little further away, but she can still hear him answer, _**Apparently so. Again, I didn’t have time to perform many tests.**_

“Well, pick something easier to wear the next time you go through my closet, so I don’t have to choose between cutting you off and going to sleep with my clothes on.”

And that’s when she remembers: the evening in the garden. Petra’s endless cups of liquor. Waking up fully-dressed with her fingers still sticky, the same as her inner thighs.

Throughout it all, the itch that never went away.

“Hubert?”

_**Yes?** _

“Hubert, did you, uh…”

_**Did I what?** _

She has to force out the words: “A few days ago, I-I forgot to undress one night.” She closes her eyes, cheeks burning. “And did you see me while I was—”

It sounds like Hubert is recovering from a coughing fit.

 _ **I stopped playing close attention when you went to the gardens,**_ he finally sputters. _**Obviously you were safe with Petra. A report needed proofreading, so I stopped the sound to avoid distraction. I was just packing up and I glanced—**_ He coughs again. _**It wasn’t—it only—it was over very quickly.**_

The picture paints itself so easily in her mind: a late night in Hubert’s office, him at work with his coat slung over the back of his chair, his hair messy from the way he scratches his head when he’s frustrated with paperwork. A little box—wood? no, glass would be more mysterious—placed carefully on a cleared patch of desk. He glances at it throughout the evening, smirking to himself when he hears snatches of Petra’s infamous drunk giggle. He takes comfort from the mere idea of having his Emperor close at hand. Then, stretching his arms after such a long day, he looks down, hoping for one more glimpse of her to last him the night. And he finds her alone, lying back, knees spread, reaching down and touching…

It suddenly occurs to Edelgard, as she grips the shirt around her neck so tightly she might wrinkle it permanently, that while she’s been shivering with arousal, Hubert’s ongoing apology has fallen on deaf ears.

_**—And I vow it will never, ever happen again—** _

“What’s the window like?”

_**—Cannot atone enough for—what?** _

“The win-dow,” she says more slowly, raising her hand above her head to trace an imaginary rectangle for emphasis. “You didn't go into any detail regarding the dimensions. What's its shape? How much of the room do you really see? I assume it follows me as I move as well?”

_**It’s, uh, circular. The view is roughly six feet in diameter, I’d guess. Your head and feet fit within it as you’re laying right now. And yes, the mark is always at the center, so right now I can only see you and the bed. …Why do you want to know?** _

“Just one more question,” Edelgard cuts him off. Already she can feel her pulse quickening as the idea takes shape. “Do you miss me too?”

There’s a faint rustling sound, and after a moment, a long exhale. Edelgard squeezes the bunched-up shirt as though holding it tighter might pass on, somehow, the feeling of an embrace.

 _ **I am currently lying in bed, in the dark, talking to an empty powder box,** _Hubert says, _**and it’s the happiest I’ve been in ten days. I think it’d be fair to say yes, my lady, I do.**_

That decides it.

She remembers to say, “Hold on, I’ll be back in a minute,” before she whips the shirt off and scrambles to get up.

* * *

After a final, frantic fluffing of the pillows behind her, Edelgard leans back, takes a deep breath, and pulls the shirt on as quickly as she can without getting tangled in it.

She cranes her head back to the ceiling. “Hubert? Are you still there?”

 _ **Of course. You told me to wait.**_ A pause. _**You changed your shirt.**_

She did. It’s one of the less formal pieces she brought, to be worn for the scheduled excursion to view Biringan’s famous stone temples. But Edelgard selected it less for the purpose and more for the style: it’s the only shirt she brought that buttons down the front. Laying down, the hem falls to the tops of her thighs, covering enough to be decent—well, barely decent.

Because she’s not wearing anything else beneath it.

“I did.” Edelgard fiddles with the top button as her eyes roam over the ceiling. The panels are laid in a design that repeats itself from wall to wall. There’s no particular spot to focus on, but she decides that doesn’t matter. Her stomach isn’t fluttering from the prospect of seeing anything, but _being_ seen. Slowly, she unfastens the button with a twist of her fingers. She shifts her legs just enough for the shirt to ride up a little more. “The view must be pretty clear, then, for you to notice in the dark.”

 _ **You’ve got more moonlight than I do.** _There’s just the smallest hitch in Hubert’s voice. _ **It’s a cloudy night here. Brigid is lighting up my room.**_

Another painting taking shape: Hubert stretched on his side in bed, washed blue from the light pouring out of the little box he’s propped next to him. Even so far away, she’s able to spread over his skin, melt into his sheets.

Edelgard’s fingers clench around the next button. _Slowly,_ she orders herself, _or you’ll rush through and ruin the end, like last time._

“You know, I’d like to do a little test with your spell,” she says. With another twist, the second button is freed. “I want to know how much you can see. Describe the scene to me.”

Hubert hesitates, but then he says, _**You’re in your room, clearly. I see the bed: it’s got carved posts to frame the curtains, which are so thin that I can’t fathom how they’d block any morning sun.**_

Edelgard chuckles, takes up button three. “The curtains here are meant to block bugs, not the sun.”

 _ **Ah.** _Another pause. _**Then on top of the bed is…you.**_

“Me,” she repeats. She went too fast with button four; five is right above her navel, the last guard keeping the side of the shirt from falling open, exposing her chest. She circles her finger around it, trying to keep her hips still. “No description of me?”

Hubert’s laugh is throaty, uneven.

_**I think you know exactly how much of you I can see, my lady.** _

With that, the well of Edelgard’s patience for buttons evaporates. She races through the rest of them, and when she’s finished, her hands travel back up to the collar. Breathing deeply, she parts the two sides as she skims down the front of her body, the fabric tickling as it slips down the sides of her breasts. Even in the warm night, she feels her nipples harden quickly when she brushes them with just the tips of her fingers. ‘Exposed’ isn’t so bad a feeling anymore. She toys with her breasts, gathering them in her hands, drawing aimless patterns across her skin.

Just when the silence in the back of her head was starting to worry her, Hubert speaks up.

 _ **I-I just want to make sure this time.** _When she closes her eyes, it’s easier to think he really is right behind her. _**That you’re alright with me watching.**_

“How many times have I told you?” she half-scolds, half-teases. She strokes over her ribs, down her belly. “I like that you watch over me. I like knowing you’re there.”

 _ **So you’ve said.**_ His voices hitches again as she reaches her hips. _**But in context…**_

“Hubert,” she says, opening her eyes to look at a point she judges must be the very center of the circle, “that other night, what do you think was on my mind, to make me come so fast?”

He doesn’t reply to that. But Edelgard could swear she hears, very faintly, the rustling of sheets.

She could ask, of course, if he’s touching himself too. But she’s got enough ideas to start with.

Slowly. It’s a difficult order to follow with how fast her heart is already beating, how hot her inner thighs feel under her hands. Edelgard strokes her palm over herself first, teasing along the path of her curls. She’s not surprised to find herself fairly wet when her hand delves a little deeper. All the teasing has made her sensitive enough that she can’t touch her clit directly at first, has to massage her fingers over her folds to dull the sensation. Not that dulling anything seems possible anymore; the spell’s itch feels more like a burn.

When she brings her wrist to her mouth and bites over the sigil, Hubert’s groan is unmistakable. Edelgard parts her folds with her fingers, stroking her entrance along its silky edges.

“Hubert,” she pants as she slips her first finger inside, “do you know just how much I miss you?” She pictures him watching closely, trying to match the twist of his hand around the base of his cock to her strokes with one finger, soon with two. “Have you caught me looking in corners, watching for shadows?”

Hubert’s laugh turns to a gasp when she arches her back against the pillows, trying to angle her hand better. _**I thought you’d caught my terrible case of paranoia.**_

She manages to shake her head. Her free hand clutches at her breast as she strokes herself faster, her hips trying to move in time.

“I kept your notes,” she moans. “All the notes you made about preparing this tour. Your lists of things I needed to pack.” The slick on her fingers is smearing further down her palm as she increases her pace. She rubs the heel of her hand against her clit, rocking her hips hard. “I keep reading them over and over. I think about you writing them. About your hands."

He groans again, louder. His hands, she thinks, growling with frustration, that reach much farther inside than hers. But no matter—Edelgard pulls out her dripping fingers and moves them to her clit. The first touch alone has her writhing, biting her lip between her teeth.

“I think about—” she circles faster, feeling every muscle in her legs start to tense, “—how we argued the night before I left. How I want to make it up to you when I return.”

She’s nearly to a peak when he whispers, _**And how would you?**_

It’s enough to remind her: _slowly._ With an agonized moan, she takes her hand away. Her muscles clench, begging, but find no release.

The vertical position of the window makes it hard for her neck, but it also makes it easy to hide things cleverly. Edelgard sits up to reach into the pillows stacked behind her and pull out the silk bag. Earlier, while she rushed to set the scene, she thought this part might be done dramatically—theatrically—if only for her own amusement. But she underestimated how much this would affect her: how imagining Hubert is here, is everywhere, is looking through the ceiling and behind the walls and just outside the door, watching, keeping her close, would arouse her beyond measure.

So without any ceremony, she loosen the drawstrings and shakes the dildo and bottle of oil out into her waiting hand.

Hubert’s voice doesn’t hitch this time. It sounds more like he’s struggling to take in any air at all, let alone turn it into speech.

At last, he manages, _**I don’t remember that being on my packing lists.**_

“I snuck it in.” Edelgard grins as she strokes the smooth wooden head. “Seems that even in Enbarr, you don’t see everything.”

She spreads a palmful of oil over the length of the dildo, making sure it’s coated well. It shines in the moonlight; Hubert must be able to see every glistening angle. Just for fun, Edelgard brings it to her mouth and flicks her tongue over the tip. The pained sound he makes sends shivers over her skin. She takes one of the pillows and wedges it under her hips, to help support her back—and angling herself to better be seen. She feels almost dizzy as she passes her slick hand over her folds, realizing how wet she is, how she’s going to stain this shirt.

As she eases the dildo inside her, she keeps her eyes open, looking up.

“I’d make up it to you—" she gasps sharply as she clenches around the head, moaning at the feeling of its stiff form, how it fills her, “—by inviting you to my bed, since you’re so protective of yours.”

She grips the shaft, pushing deeper. Hubert’s low voice is right in her ear, practically growling as he says, _**So you’d really like to have a tryst, in that case.**_

“Maybe I would. Maybe I’d get a thrill from it.” She begins to thrust with a steady, determined pace. “Like I do when I picture you keeping that box on your desk, or in your pocket. Glancing at it under the table when you’re in a meeting.” She uses her other hand to work at her clit again. “Catching me like this.

“In fact, it’s a good thing I didn’t know you were watching until now.” Edelgard laughs breathlessly as she bucks her hips, feeling the unrelenting push of the solid wood, her legs practically aching from how tight her body feels. “Can you imagine if I knew you could see me at all these dinners? What I’d try to get away with?” She thrusts the dildo as deep as it will fit, trying to brush that tender spot she’s found a few times before. She’s sweating enough that the shirt is sticking to her arms and wrinkled under her back. “If I’d known you were watching on the voyage, I’d give it away at once. Everyone would hear me. Everyone would know.”

Hubert makes a choked sound. He’s covering his mouth with his hand, maybe, or his forearm, but he wouldn’t turn over and bury his face in the pillow. He wouldn’t want to block the view. It’s not a question of whether he’s touching himself or not now; it’s just a matter of whether she’ll hear him come, and whether he’ll be able to outlast her.

Edelgard circles her clit with renewed determination. Her grip on the dildo keep slipping, so she shortens her thrusts, pressing the head against that tender spot, no longer trying to slow down or hold back. She arches her back against the bed, crying out.

She can hear quite clearly when Hubert comes. In just a few more thrusts, she makes sure he can hear her too.

It’s like all her nerves have been wound into a spring and then released at once. Edelgard shakes, still grinding against the fingers on her clit, drawing out her climax until she’s too weak to keep going. When she finally eases the dildo out and lies there, loose-limbed and warm from head to foot, the night breeze arrives again to cool the sweat coating her skin. She brings one arm up to wipe her forehead on the sleeve of her shirt.

“Are you still there?” she finally breathes.

It’s hard to make out his exhausted mumble at first, but Hubert replies, _**Yes. Always.**_

Edelgard closes her eyes, already losing the battle with sleep, and smiles.

* * *

It’s a chilly day in Enbarr, but she keeps the windows open regardless. After a whole week of early fall damp, her office has felt unbearably stuffy, so she’s determined to let in fresh air as long as the skies remain clear. Her poor secretary refused the offer at first, but now he’s sorting through her letter pile swathed in the Emperor’s own shawl.

“You’ll catch your death in here, Your Majesty.”

The secretary almost jumps out of his chair, but Edelgard doesn’t even bother turning around.

“Oh please, Hubert, that’s an old wives’ tale.” She dips her pen back in the inkwell, starting a new line. “Cold weather doesn’t cause illness the same way rain doesn’t birth worms.”

A sigh. “All the same. Conrad?” The secretary scrambles up and bows. “Fetch Her Majesty another shawl, since you seem to need that one more.”

After the secretary stammers a yes, right away my lord, and hurries through the door towards her apartments, Edelgard shifts in her chair to find Hubert standing behind her. He’s dressed for traveling, a thick cloak pinned around his shoulders and a satchel slung over one arm.

“Is it time already?” She frowns, glancing at the clock. “I thought you didn’t leave for another hour yet.”

“The coachman is concerned it may rain later tonight, so it’s better to leave now, before the roads get too muddy.” His fingers drum on the back of her chair. “I came to let you know.”

“Oh, alright.” Edelgard rolls her shoulders, eager to stretch after leaning over her desk for so long. “And this is the survey of Boramas County, yes?”

“Bergliez.”

“Bergliez,” she corrects herself. “Goodness, I can’t keep any of them straight anymore.”

“I know. That’s why I wrote it down for you.” Hubert’s hand brushes, very lightly, over the back of her neck. If you look closely, his thin mouth is halfway to a smile. “Several times.”

He drops his hand quickly when Conrad blusters back in, another shawl held aloft in his arms as though it were the crown jewels. Edelgard gently shoos him back to his desk after accepting it, but Hubert takes it from her before she can shake it out. He drapes it over her shoulders in a smooth, practiced motion: a polite gesture, gentlemanly. It wouldn’t raise any eyebrows, but Edelgard pretends her shiver really is from the cold.

“I will return on the fourteenth,” Hubert says, bowing his head. “Your reports may be delayed a few days.”

“I’ll try to survive til then,” she says dryly. She gives him her hand, accepts the kiss of her ring. “Safe journey, my lord.” Idly, she reaches back and taps the lid of the small glass box sitting on the corner of her desk. “See you soon.”

On his way out, Hubert scratches at his wrist, and she could swear he's already blushing.

**Author's Note:**

> This [title inspo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SCi3WHzapo) could radiocarbon date me…
> 
> For the nerds: the 3-day sailing time between Enbarr and Brigid was chosen based on the time it took Roman ships to reach the coast of Africa across the Mediterranean. Brigid’s climate and palace architecture was based on the Philippines.
> 
> Does it say something about me that my hashtag character introspection fic is from Hubert's pov, but I keep filling kinkmemes in Edelgard's?? VOTE NOW ON YOUR PHONES


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